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Chocolate (dark) » Homemade Remedies
for Your Health

USE
FOR

Added antioxidants
Anxiety
Back pain

Boosting mood
Heart health
High blood pressure

Mood enhancement
Stress

You’ve got to love modern
science, especially when it comes up with excellent reasons for
people to indulge in delectable dark chocolate. Now we know that
chocolate, once considered a “sinful” indulgence, actually contains
the same disease-fighting antioxidants found in red wine and in many
fruits and vegetables that are linked to a decreased risk of heart
disease.

rooted in history
Both the Mayans and the Aztecs believed that chocolate was magical,
even divine, and used it in their sacred
rituals. The Aztec king, Montezuma, may have been the first to serve
chocolate to Spanish conquistadors, who at first sneered at the
unsweetened drink, calling it “a bitter drink for pigs.” But once
the conquistadors mixed it with sugar, they were hooked. Chocolate
was among the treasures the Spanish brought back from the New World,
and after its introduction in 1528, its source and preparation were
kept secret for over 90 years. But by the 17th century, chocolate
was popular all over Europe and was considered nutritious,
medicinal, and even a libido enhancer. Legend has it that the
libertine Casanova was a big fan. Chocolate then made its way back
across the Atlantic as Europeans settled in North America. It became
such a desirable and valuable commodity that Revolutionary War
soldiers were given chocolate as part of their standard rations, and
sometimes it was even used in lieu of cash wages.

what’s in it?
The cacao beans used to make the chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and
cocoa powder found in chocolate products are chock full of
flavonoids. These powerful antioxidants neutralize the free radicals
that damage cells and cause disease. Dark chocolate contains far
more flavonoid-rich cocoa par tides than milk chocolate—so if you’re
eating chocolate for your health, forgo the sweet stuff and choose
chocolate that contains at least 60 percent cacao. The higher the
percent age of cacao, the more good stuff the chocolate contains.
Chocolate’s flavonoids increase the body’s levels of nitric oxide, a
gas that causes blood vessels to relax and expand, which in turn
promotes healthy circulation and blood pres sure. Chocolate is made
up of three kinds of fats in roughly equal amounts. One is oleic
acid, a heart-healthy fat also found in olive oil. The others are
stearic and palmitic acids, which are forms of saturated fats.
Unlike the saturated fats that increase unhealthy cholesterol,
stearic acid appears to have a neutral effect on it. Palmitic acid,
on the other hand, does raise cholesterol levels, but it only makes
up about a third of chocolate’s fat calories.

what science says
Chocolate is a gift of love on Valentine’s Day and a fabled reliever
of romantic encounters gone wrong. Women, in particular, are known
to reach for chocolate when nursing a case of the blues. Now,
scientists are a baby step closer to figuring out the reason for
chocolate’s happy-making reputation. In a recent study, scientists
from the Nestlé Research Center in Switzerland examined chocolate’s
effects on stress hormone levels. They enrolled 30 people in the
study and tested their anxiety levels. Thirteen people tested as
high anxiety; 17 tested as low anxiety. Everyone got 20 grams of
dark chocolate (about an ounce) twice a day. After two weeks,
researchers performed blood and urine tests and dis covered that
chocolate lowered levels of stress hormones in all the volunteers
but there was a bigger drop for the high- anxiety people than for
the low-anxiety people.

As to matters of the heart: The American Heart Association recently
summarized years of chocolate research in a report published in its
journal, Circulation. The conclusion? “Cocoa does indeed exert
beneficial cardiovascular effects.” The reason for the benefits, the
report said, are chocolate’s concentration of polyphenols, which are
also found in fruits and vegetables.

For example, in 2008, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and
Sinai Hospital in Baltimore concluded that eating 3.5 ounces of dark
chocolate (70 percent cocoa) every day for a week can lower
unhealthy LDL cholesterol by 6 percent and raise healthy HDL
cholesterol by 8 per- cent. Finally, Italian researchers, in
collaboration with the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging
at Tufts University, studied 19 people with high blood pres sure and
blood sugar control problems. They gave them a daily serving of
either 3.5 ounces of dark or white chocolate. After 15 days, the
groups switched chocolates. Turns out that eating dark chocolate—but
not white—lowers systolic pressure (the first number in a blood
pressure reading) by 12 points and diastolic pressure by 9 points.
What’s more, eating dark chocolate reduced inflammation, another
risk factor for heart disease, and increased insulin sensitivity, an
important factor in treating type 2 diabetes.

Good to Know

Chocolate is rich in phenyletbylamine (PEA), a naturally occurring
compound that has effects similar to amphetamine, it can trigger
migraine headaches in susceptible people.

BUYER'S tip

Choose dark chocolate over milk chocolate—look for cocoa content of
at least 60 to 75 percent. The higher the percentage, the more
bitter the chocolate will taste, but the richer it will be in
antioxidants.. Milk chocolate hasn’t been proven to have similar
health benefits, and it contains milk fat, which is highly
saturated. Processing removes most of the flavonoids from cocoa and
chocolate syrup. White chocolate contains no cocoa and has no health
benefits.

The calorie issue
The amount of dark chocolate, 3.5 ounces (100 g), used in some
studies contains a whopping 550 calories. That’s just too much of a
good thing for most people to eat regularly. If you’re going to
indulge daily, settle for 1.5 ounces (40 g), which contains 220
calories. But be sure to trim 220 less healthful calories elsewhere
in your diet, or risk packing on 23 pounds over a year’s time.